[dbpatterson]

Or, to summarize, we need to take some of the money from the people who are currently extracting it from everyone else...

Money, and wealth, is not owned, it is collectively created. Without collective enforcement of monetary value, currency is useless. Without collective enforcment of property laws, property rights don't exist. The only non-collective value that exists is individual power, usually via violence. Unless you want to live in a society run by armed militias (see, for example, various failed states), you depend on collective enforcement. Taxes are not a matter of taking _back_, they are fees for services rendered for that collective enforcement. Your wealth would not exist without society. How much society charges to allow you to have that wealth is what we, as a society, need to decide.

[rbritton]

But where does it stop? When are people expected to assume a degree of personal responsibility? It may sound cruel, but what value to society are people who mooch off the effort of others and provide nothing of their own? There are 6 million [0] open job positions, surely a person could find something suitable in one of those, even if just a stepping stone?

Individuals and businesses extracting wealth by providing a good or service is capitalism. Yes, there are bad apples in the bunch, probably most often those at the highest income levels. But the vast majority of those who are currently taxed for the various welfare services and who would be further taxed to implement a UBI are not in that bunch. What right does a minority of society have to demand a portion of their labor?

[0]: https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/job-openings-rose-to-6-poi...

[mcbruiser3]

omg I wish I could downvote this 1000x

[nnfy]

>Without collective enforcement of monetary value, currency is useless

Absolute totalitarian drivel. Currency, like economics in general, is an emergent phenomenon, and does not require any form of enforcement.

>Your wealth would not exist without society. Taxes are not a matter of taking _back_, they are fees for services rendered for that collective enforcement.

Also nonsense. Again, wealth is an emergent phenomenon, arising from scarcity. More importantly, since these collective behaviors are emergent, I do not necessarily need to be involuntarily forced to pay for them.

And, for the record, paying fees following services is literally "taking back." Don't sugar coat taxation.